By The Canadian Press Home ownership became less affordable during the first quarter, especially in Vancouver where it took nearly three-quarters of family income to pay for mortgages, property taxes and utilities, according to an RBC Economics report. RBC said that while a detached bungalow in Vancouver ate up an average 72.1 per cent of […]

Garry Marr  May 17, 2011 Canadian home prices continued their upward march in April, driven by strong investor demand in Vancouver, as cracks in the Toronto condominium market may be starting to appear. The Canadian Real Estate Association said Tuesday the average price of a home sold in April in Canada was $372,544, up 8% from […]

Garry Marr, Financial Post · May 14, 2011 We are a cocky lot in Canada about our wealth with millionaires apparently abounding everywhere. Our confidence probably got another boost with a report from the Deloitte Center for Financial Services saying there were 1,745,000 households in Canada with more than $1-million in assets in 2011. Not bad, […]

AMY FONTINELLE Investopedia.com Published Thursday, May. 12, 2011 7:02AM EDT 1. Repair Your Credit and Increase Your Score To lenders, your credit score represents the likelihood that you will make your mortgage payments in full and on time every month. Therefore, with most loans, the lower your credit score, the higher your interest rate will be […]

Garry Marr, Financial Post  Another day of data brought further proof of the resiliency of the Canadian housing market and the current frailty of its U.S. counterpart. The latest bad news for American housing was a report from real estate company Zillow showing the market might have a ways to go before it bottoms out. […]

There has already been “some softening” in the Canadian real estate market so there is no need for further tightening of mortgage rules, said Jim Flaherty, the finance minister. Unlike the United States and Europe, the Canadian housing market has continued to rise after the financial crisis, leading some observers to caution we could be […]

Gasoline prices at the pump in Canada have climbed pretty much all winter, while in the United States they have risen for a remarkable 35 days straight, even as oil prices have see-sawed in recent weeks. Thedisconnect has enraged consumers, as they fork over nearly $4 (U.S.) a gallon or about $1.34 (Canadian) a litre […]

The Canadian economy is not only creating more jobs, it’s creating better jobs according to one of the country’s major banks. CIBC’s latest employment quality index shows that 60 per cent of new jobs created over the past year would qualify as high-paying, quality jobs. The bank says there’s been an increase in full-time and […]

Earlier this year, we bought a second home in Naples, Florida. This wasn’t a quick decision for my husband and me. We love spending time in that area of Florida and property prices there are at their lowest level since 2002, but I really struggled with whether a second home made financial sense. But, ultimately, […]

Last September, my wife and I started scouring the city for a new house. We were living in a cozy bungalow, but with a growing kid and another on the way, we decided it was time to move. Buying a new house is, of course, expensive, so I wanted to do whatever it took to […]